Mobile Miscellany: week of July 1st, 2013

HTC's just pulled back the proverbial curtains on the Butterfly s at its Taiwan launch event. It'll arrive boasting a familiar-sounding 5-inch 1080p display, front-facing BoomSound stereo speakers and Sense 5 as expected. When it comes to internals, the Butterfly s runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on a quad-core 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 (faster than the HTC One), an impressive 3,200mAh battery, quad-band HSPA/WCDMA radio, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage, expandable once again through microSD. As for imaging, alongside that primary UltraPixel camera and Zoe software features, there's a 2.1-megapixel wide-angle shooter on the front. It's currently scheduled for a July release in Taiwan, accompanied by a NT $22,900 (roughly $766) price tag, but there's no word when (or even if) it'll reach foreign shores.

Update: Our Chinese sister site just spent some hands-on time with the device. Check out their first impressions right here. We've also added an official video and press release right after the break.

Taipei, June 19, 2013 - HTC, a global leader in mobile innovation and design, has today announced the HTC Butterfly S. This stylish, supercharged 5-inch device is powered by a 1.9 GHz quad-core processor and features HTC BlinkFeed™, HTC Zoe™ and HTC BoomSound™, first introduced with the award-winning HTC One. The new device also offers HTC's latest Sense 5 experience and Android Jelly Bean, with a stamina battery that packs 3,200 mAh of raw power, guaranteeing peak performance for longer.

"We've upgraded the popular HTC Butterfly to reflect the new standards set by the HTC One for smartphone performance." said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. "The HTC Butterfly changed the way people looked at a smartphone thanks to the world's first full HD 1080p, 5-inch screen and that complete viewing experience has been taken to the next level with HTC BlinkFeed. HTC BoomSound and HTC Zoe integration also make the experience of the HTC Butterfly S unlike that of any other 5-inch device."

HTC BlinkFeed: Stop digging for information with live home screen updates from your favourite sources HTC's acclaimed BlinkFeed makes perfect use of the breath-taking 5-inch, full HD Super LCD 3 display of the HTC Butterfly S. Transforming the home screen into a customisable, vibrant stream of live information, BlinkFeed delivers the freshest contentfrom social updates, news and articles at a glance.

With local and global content drawn from more than 2,000 media sources, BlinkFeed pulls more than 10,000 articles from some of the world's leading media companies including AOL, ESPN, MTV, The Financial Times and Reuters to give you the most interesting and important stories of the moment, wherever you may be.

HTC BoomSound: sharper, richer, bigger soundHTC BoomSound's dual front-facing stereo speakers and two dedicated amplifiers deliver sound quality and power like no other. Listen to music, play games and watch videos with less distortion and more clarity. Beats Audio™ integration completes the unrivalled audio experience for you and your friends' ultimate listening pleasure.

Bring all of your spectacular photography to life and share it easily with Video Highlights, a part of the HTC Butterfly S' living, breathing gallery. Automatically creating 30-second shows accompanied by a soundtrack of your choosing, Video Highlights requires no professional editing software but produces visually stunning, instantly sharable online videos.

Stamina battery: Stay at full speed for longer The HTC Butterfly S is powered by the highest-capacity battery ever seen in a HTC smartphone. 3,200 mAh of raw power means that you can now take photos, watch videos and listen to music without worrying about battery life, giving your mobile life a turbo boost exactly where it needs it the most.

Global Availability

The HTC Butterfly S will be available in select Asia Pacific markets from July.